Component processes in bridge bidding and novel problem-solving tasks.

Abstract

Bridge players varying in age and skill level performed components of bridge bidding:naming the value of an honour card, announcing the point could of a bridge hand. Age-related slower bidding was due primarily to slowing in encoding and response processes, rather than to the manipulation of encoded information. Skill-related accuracy and rapidity in bidding was due to faster localization of honour cards, conversion to point values, and addition of points. The players also completed mental counting, digit span, card span, simple reaction time, the Twenty Questions game, and the four-disk Tower of Hanoi problem in a second study. Age-related inefficiency in problem-solving for the two novel tasks was not attributable to age-related changes in speed of processing or working memory capacity. These results suggest that there is no single locus (speed, working memory capacity) for age-related declines in information processing efficiency. Component processes for skilled versus novel problem-solving showed diverging patterns of correlation with age.